[LORERIM] I need some help on intended game progression, or advice

Hi,

So I've been meaning to play a proper Skyrim modded run for a while and Lorerim seems great. I started as a thief's guild guy and was chilling around riften for five levels. The second I get out of the city shenanigans start happening. I walk on a street outside riften for 30 second a bunch of lv 36 dudes just come sprinting at me and I have to run around for 10 minutes and eventually go back in the city to have the guards kill them. I go into a tiny mine and there's a leve 20something flying imp oneshotting me the moment I walk in. I try and do the Goldenglow quest, all sneaky like, get into the sewer and there's a random ass lv 30 phantom two steps into the sewer oneshotting me as soon as I get close... Is the intended gameplay loop supposed to just be lv 30 enemies all over the place and you have to chug half a dozen potions for each one and then go back and restock? Or is combat suposed to be this rare and hard thing that I should avoid until I can oneshot stuff. I can just spam thief's guild jobs and grind levels and play a stealth archer to kill the op enemies but that seems incredibly boring. Am I missing something? What's with the rando lv 30 enemies everywhere? Is it just a skill issue?